


As the Shell Cracks

by Quietbang



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Fanfic as Therapy, Multi, RRPTSD, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-22
Updated: 2011-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:13:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quietbang/pseuds/Quietbang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, he could be okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Serious, serious, **serious** trigger warning for this. There are no graphic depictions of non-con, but the depictions of rape-related PTSD and the effect of CSA are pretty full on, and quite frankly *I* found this story triggery while writing it. I had a full blown panic-attack a few times, so proceed with caution, okay?
> 
> Written for the following prompt: _Charles freaks out when someone calls him Charlie, because that's what Kurt called him when he was drunk anf made Charles do things he doesn't want to remember._

Sometimes, he can be okay.

Sometimes he can pretend, and _rememberrememberforgetatlast_.

He can laugh, and touch, and smile the smile of someone who doesn't know how the pure white-hot truth of pain and guilt and fear painted with love can destroy the strongest.

They forget, Erik, and Raven, and all those who call him idealist, naive, that he, of all people, knows what evil lurks in the heart of man. Would know it anyways, even if he was able to believe and inhabit his own pretense.

Charles had never had the opportunity for innocence. He wonders, sometimes, if that is why he and Erik get along so well.

Sometimes, his shields are strong and his control great, and it is on those days that he understands why Erik looks at him and sees a child. He wonders if it would make a difference if he knew.

Then, there are days like today, where the dust and the cold and the wind wrap their fickle chains around him and make his teeth ache.  
Where the thousand shattered pieces of a soul he doesn't believe in are barely held together by spit and prayers and chewing gum.

He has always hated the cold.

 _Charlie, my dear boy,_ the snaky whispered tendrils of a memory slide through his ears.

 _Surely you can't be going outside at this time of year? Oh, no, child, it's far too cold for that. Come into my study. Cookie's laid a fire._

The shields bang back down with a crash so loud that Charles is sure everyone can hear them, but its worth it. It's already seven, after all. He only has to make it another few hours before he can go to bed, and end the day.

He reenters his body with a carefully controlled twinge. Everyone was looking at him, and he wonders if his half-fanciful suspicion had been right.

“Charles?” Raven sounds worried. “Are you alright?”

“What? Oh, yes, yes of course. I'm fine.”

Alex grinned boozily. “Y'sure about that, Charlie-boy?” He slung a friendly arm around Charles' shoulders.

 _an overwhelming sensation of fearshameguiltwickedwickedhate please god make it stop anything please let me help I can change pleaseplease don't- stop- make it end Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui Iesus_

Alex releases him with a look of horror. Charles chances a look up, and sees the looks of confusion on the faces of Hank, Raven and Sean.  
He's not sure if that's better than the Alex's horror.

It's definitely better than the murderous rage of Erik, mingled as it is with quiet understanding.

He hasn't projected like that since he was 17 years old.

“Excuse me,” he says quietly, and he can feel the bits of gum and spit fading, feel himself shattering.

It is not a gracious retreat.

His teeth hurt.


	2. Chapter 2

_Stop it_ , he commanded himself as he paced about his room.

 _This isn't rational, you know it's not rational, calm down, you're fine, you're great, everything's fine, you're going to remember how to breathe, and then you are going to go to bed and pretend this day  
never happened._

He stopped.

 _Oh, bugger, Erik._

He closed his eyes, trying with all his might to regain whatever shattered bits of poise he had lost.

 _You can stop this, you can stop this, please, come now old boy, this is child's play, you can-_  
but he couldn't.

Try though he might, he couldn't wipe their minds.

What was the point in being a bloody _telepath_ if you couldn't help yourself when you really needed it?

Christ, he needed a drink.

His powers were spiking and seeping all over the place, mingled shouts of   
_is he okay what did he do what is the matter_   
and   
_oh fuck what did I do I didn't know I should have known it's not fucking right it's not fucking fair_ and, worst of all _  
Oh Charles give me names give me names and give me dates and I'll do it myself you were supposed to be better-safe-sweet and you shouldn't be alone I know mein gott do I know & please let me help._

It was all he could do not to burst into tears.

The noise was grinding his bones into dust and he couldn't do this, he _couldn't_ , but yes he could because for heaven's sake he'd done it for this long and he could do it again.

He began pacing again.

 _calm your mind calm your mind calm your mind calm your-_  
-with a strangled cry, he whirled around, grasped the nearest picture frame, and hurled it against the wall opposite.

He could feel them, feel the tendrils of thought and worry that wafted upstairs at the audible crash.   
They wove with the strands of memory and chocked him more effectively than a noose.

Suddenly, incongruously, he got an image of _puppies and kittens and rainbows and- fish? German lullabies and bongos and apple pie and wonder woman in a tutu_.

The suffocating din of five minds being calmed, happy thoughts consciously projected outward.

He was seriously never leaving his room ever again.

Except for a bath.

Yes, a bath.  
That's what Raven had- _donenotdone if you are the only one who remembers did it happen or have you lost your mind_ \- when Charles had been _hurtscaredhurtbroken-strong, stronger than you know, love_.

 _Erik?_

 _Get in the damned tub, Charles._

An order. Good, he could do that.

But he was too shaky, his mind was too loose, and _find it find it the white-hot space behind your eyes you can do it Charles you can do it if I can do it you can_

 _No, I can't_.

 _Don't be stupid. It's not that difficult. I'll be up in a while. Allest ist gut, Charles, allest ist gut_

The last part was wrapped in wet cotton, muffled, and even in this state Charles knew that Eric hadn't meant to send that part.

There is more than one way to make a child into a weapon.

It just depends on whom one wishes to destroy.


	3. Chapter 3

He has never before been so grateful to be male.

Bad enough that Erik should know. Bad enough that Alex certainly suspected. Bad enough that Raven _rememberedornot, remembered or not_ , with the half-imagined heartbeat of a ghost.

 _They will never know._

It is 1962, and the world does not yet wish to understand. Not from the mind of Charles Xavier. Not from the lips or thoughts or screams of any man.

Nor, yet, from the mouths of millions, billions, of women.

Secrets and lies, secrets and lies, half-hidden between truth and pretension, buried beneath white picket fences and the smoky ashes that remain of innocence.

Maybe Hank, if it had been Raven, would have guessed.

Or maybe not. Charles, of all people, knows that an education does not remove naivete.

He is in bed, great swallows of exhaustion superseding the adrenaline jerks of his hands and feet.

The edges of everything are too rough, too raw, the colours too bright and too muted to subdue the technicolour of his thoughts.

 _They will never know._

Erik does.

This news does not trouble him as much as it should.

Perhaps it is because of the dreams.

He suspects Erik is not aware that they are projected, shouted so strongly Charles wonders how it is that no-one else can hear.

 _crys and screams and hatehatehate, shame and dust and mud, grey, grey, eveything is grey, and it takes him a while to realise that it is not that others cannot hear the cries of those who are highlighted in pink and black, but that they do not wish to._

 _They will be the only survivors to be returned to prison after liberation_

 _Even here, amongst those who have been told all their lives that they are subhuman, there is a hierarchy.  
_

Charles knows how it is that Erik learned to hate.

Erik does not know how Charles learned to love.

Does not wish to know, does not wish to remember how the hand that slaps can also sooth.

 _wrongwrongwrong I don't know what I'm doing wrong stopstopstop i didn't mean to sicksicksick I can't help I can't help_

Erik is in the room now. They are careful, not as careful as they should be, but enough that Charles does not think anyone else suspects.

Those who would lack the words for it. Fairy, mary, molly, shirt-lifter – no right-thinking person would apply those words, with all their trappings, to hard, masculine Erik Lensherr. To suave, sosphisticated, lady-killing Charles Xavier.

 

He knows that they are lucky, that had they been other people they would not have acted. But they had both learned the filth said to define them from the lips of insects, and so dismissed the information as irrelevant and untrue besides.

 _Charles?_  
 _It is fine, Erik._  
 _No._  
It is not a question.

Erik reaches out and slowly, tenderly, runs his callused palm across Charles' face, the fine hairs rasping against rough flesh.

 _I am not made of glass, Erik._

 _No._

 _So why do you imagine that I am?_

He does not tell him that his muscles seem to have been replaced with plasticine, that his thoughts spark and pop like a two-bit cap gun, that his energy has been drained and he just wants to

 _sleepsleepsleeep and never wake up._

He does not have to.

Erik understands the fallacy of normalcy.


	4. Chapter 4

“Who was he?”

Charles pressed his lips together and shook his head. 

“Charles.  _Who was he?”_

“Does it matter now? He's dead.”

 _reliefdisappointmentsatisfaction_  thrummed through the air. 

Charles let out a choked laugh, and then another. Was this what hysteria felt like?

 _Shh,_  Erik whispered mentally. _It's okay.  
No, it's really not. _

 _Who was he?_

 _\--_

 _Charles-  
-Can I show you?_  
Erik nodded.   
 _The mental images were curiously hazy, as though covered in dust, but they were clear enough._

 _Painandworryandfeafearfear whispered at the edges of an image of a woman, blonde and pale, who had been beautiful once but now lay, motionless, in her bed, the drapes drawn and the faint smell of gin in the air._

 _Hopeandapprehensionandjealousy towards a slick-looking man in a formal suit, standing next to the woman in white. They are beautiful together, like the cover of a magazine, but the whispers of_

 _lookatthisplacerollinginmoneystupidwhore intertwined with  
notBrianneverwillbeBrian he'sbeensokindtomesokindtoCharles heneedsaparentwho'sgood-strong-smart-notlikeme are deafening, and Charles starts to cry._

 _flashes, then, connected but not, whispering in a greek chorus, painting the picture of a life._

 _A hot poker on unblemished young skin_

 _a bicycle being pushed by the same man, Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde_

 _the crunch of broken ribs_

 _“Come into the study, my dear boy. There are things we must speak about.”_

 _painfearhumiliationmyfaultmyfaultmyfault hesaysI'maqueerI'mnotaqueer whyishedoingthis?_

 _The other boy, now, shoving him down a flight of stairs and kicking, kicking, kicking, each kick coming with a mental shout of 'helovesyoumore whydoesheloveyou you'renobody you're notevenhisson I'mhisson whydoesn'thecare?'_

 _mental cries of pain and fear and husbandpleasestop echoing through the entire house late at night, sharper at first, later fuzzy and edged with drink._

 _The chapped lips of the stable boy firm beneath his, the air smelling of hay and manure and fear_

 _he'sgoingtokillme painpainpain a whip snapping through the air nosonofminewillbeaqueer I'mnotyourson._

 _A little blue girl, beautifulsobeautiful she will be safe, she will have a home, myfriendmyonlyfriendIwillalwaysprotectyou._

 _Heatandsmokeandchoking can't breathe, can't breathe, kurtyoubastardyouwillcome back!_

 _He is safe, he is saved, he and Cain both, and he doesn't hesitate before sending Kurt back into the house._

 _Guiltandpainandshame as he feels the mind, the darkbroken mind, blink out._

 

The images shift again and fade away, leaving them both back in bed, gasping for breath. 

Tears leak out of Charles' eyes, pressed tight against Erik's shoulder. 

He is shaking like a leaf.

They both are. 

Erik holds him tightly, and they both quietly fall to pieces. 


	5. Chapter 5

“Why don't you hate them?” 

“Who?” He was being disingenuous.Of course he knew what Erik was talking about. 

It was morning. They had finally slept, albeit fitfully, and as the night wore on the pain in his jaw had temporarily eased.

Sunlight streamed in through the window, bathing the bed in its warm glow.

“Don't be cute. Humans. How-how can you not? They-” _They destroyed you._

 _No, he didn't._

“I'm a telepath, Erik.” Charles seemed to feel that that answered the question. 

“You can't possibly be that naive.” _Don't be a hypocrite._

Charles sighed. 

“Do you know something, Erik? I wish I could blame them. I wish I could blame humanity, that I could blame Kurt and Cain and my mother- it would make it a fuck of a lot easier to sleep it night, but unfortunately for me,  _I am a bloody telepath,_  and I do not have the luxury of blinders! I hear everything, whether I want to or not, and I cannot afford to pretend that actions don't have causes. Cain hit me because his father hit him. Nations declare war because they fear they will be attacked. People turn a blind eye to- to wrong and to pain because they fear it happening to themselves. And Kurt-” 

Here his voice broke.

“-Kurt- did- what he did because he was a very sick, broken man, and because that's what his father did to him, and because that was the only way he could conceive of- of love- and  _I don't hate any of them_. I _pity_ them, because they were broken from the start, and no-one ever had a chance of fixing it. And because they are _broken_ , and because they  _hate_ , they try to make you hate in return- try and _make you into a weapon_ -”

Charles did not see Erik flinch. He didn't want to. 

“-and turn you lose on yourself, on the world, so that you destroy everything in your path and you poison it with hate. And the cycle continues, and it goes on and on and _fucking_ on, Erik. If we hate, my friend, then they win. They gain a victory. And I'm sorry, Erik, but I am not interested in giving them a victory.”

Erik was not sure at what point they had ceased talking about Charles and started talking about himself. Maybe, in Charles' mind, they never had. 

He reached across and smoothed a few rumpled hairs off Charles' cheekbone. 

“'We have it in us to be the better men', Charles?” Erik whispered sardonically. 

“Not quite, my dear friend.” Charles responded softly. “But if peace cannot be achieved, surely victory is the best outcome? If we keep on this road, all that guarantees is that- these- these things will happen  _again_  and  _again_  and _again_  and  _again_. Is that a price you are willing to pay?”  _Pay it once more?_

Erik's mouth was coated in ash. 

Charles' lungs were choked with woodsmoke. 

They kissed anyway.

 _I'm not interested in giving them a victory, Erik._

 _Sacrifices must be made in a war._

 _Not about that. Never about that._

Charles Xavier is 24 years old, and has seen and done things he will never remember in the pure light of day. 

He is also a soldier. 

Erik wonders if he knows this. 

Charles wonders if Erik knows that when they look at each other, they both see hope.  
Hope, in this long and bitter war.


End file.
